updated 09:20 pm EST, Tue December 21, 2010

HTC Evo Shift 4G gets image, Jan 9 ship date leaks

HTC's Evo Shift 4G for Sprint was spotted live tonight in leak showing the device in the wild. The Android QWERTY slider now appears to be a WiMAX equipped version of the T-Mobile G2 (or Desire Z) and has the same new generation 800MHz Snapdragon processor, which gives it the same speed as the old 1GHz chip. It still runs Sense UI on top, Phone Arena observed, although it's not evident if it will stay on Android 2.2 or move to 2.3.

The only main downgrades from the original Evo 4G appear to be the absence of a front camera and the screen size, which has dropped to 3.7 inches but also makes it much more portable as a whole. At least a five-megapixel back camera is likely to make its way into the phone.

Earlier slips have pointed to the Evo Shift 4G shipping on January 9 and thus virtually guaranteeing a debut at CES a few days earlier.